Just after the stroke of midnight on Samhain, he’d be dead.
Before that, he reminded himself, he would have won back Sophia’s inheritance, written to the solicitor to make it hers, and ensured that her life was as filled with opportunity as could be. Before he died, Lucien would have kept his promise to her, and no matter what else he had done in his life, that would be his measure.
The music made him feel the power of the baron surging within him. Would he miss that?
No, he would miss Sophia.
He would regret the pleasure they hadn’t shared.
He’d avoided her all day long and into the evening, and missed her already. Would she come when she heard the baron’s music on this night? The baron grinned and did a little trill with his fingers, then attacked the keyboard again.
It gave Lucien a bad feeling.
Then there was a light tap at the door.
Lucien spun to look across the room, wondering whether he had imagined the sound. Certainly, he had imagined his conviction that it had to be Sophia. The baron shook his head and winked, even as his fingers fell on the keys with new enthusiasm.
It must be Philip, come to chastise him about the music.
If that man meant to lecture him again, Lucien wouldn’t listen. He crossed the floor and flung open the door, a stern word dying on his lips when he found Sophia there.
Sophia, as she filled his dreams.
There was no pretense of her being Miss Findlay, not this time. Her hair was brushed out in gleaming waves that fell over her shoulders to her elbows. The lantern light picked out its golden glints and made her eyes look wide and dark. She appeared to be both uncertain but resolute, a combination he remembered so well that his heart clenched.
His Sophia would face dragons when she believed herself to be right.
She was even facing him.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Lucien said, trying to sound stern, but her fingertips landed upon his mouth. She studied him, leaning closer, and he took a step back. Too late, he realized that she would only follow him into the room. She kept her hand upon his lips, doing just as anticipated, then shut the door behind them. She studied him for a moment so long that he thought his heart would burst, then stretched to her toes to replace her fingers with her lips.
Lucien should have retreated. He should have turned away. But once her mouth was upon his, her breasts against his chest, her hands in his hair, Lucien was lost.
He didn’t want to be found.
It was his last chance to taste Sophia, and he wasn’t nearly strong enough to deny temptation this time. Their kiss was feverish, hungry, filled with a desperation that told him she understood his fate. Once again, their thoughts were as one. Once again, they sought the same goal. His fingers were in her hair, her hands framed his face, her kiss demanded more. He smelled her scent and caught her closer as he deepened his kiss.
When he broke their kiss, she smiled at him.
“Ruin me,” she invited in a whisper, just as she had once before.
The ardor shining in her eyes undid him completely. She loved him, despite what he had done, and this time, Lucien wouldn’t refuse her invitation.
He captured her mouth beneath his own once more, and swept Sophia into his arms. He carried her to a settee in triumph, barely noticing the baron’s departure as he began a long-overdue seduction.
Chapter 4
Sophia awakened to the distinctive sound of an umbrella rapped upon a hardwood floor. She tried to sit up but it was too late. Her shift was untied, her hair in disarray. She was yet on the settee in the music room. The candles had guttered themselves and Lucien dozed beside her, his hand locked possessively over her bare breast.
Lady North Barrows, dressed in full black splendor, stood in the doorway of the music room. Her expression was more than disapproving, her sharp gaze unlikely to have missed a single detail.
Even Sophia’s nipple caught between Lucien’s nimble fingers.
“Well, well,” Lady North Barrows said. “I now see, Miss Findlay, that you are a poor choice to teach my granddaughters about decorum.” She scowled. “I had disregarded Nelson’s tidings of your conduct, but clearly, in granting you the benefit of the doubt, I erred.”
Sophia could not find it within herself to apologize, much less to ask forgiveness. She was sorry that Lady North Barrows was disappointed in her, and couldn’t blame that lady since she regretted the deception herself, but she was also filled with a burgeoning sense of relief.
No more lies.
Her life could be her own again.
Lady North Barrows sniffed. “Consider yourself dismissed from my service. I will give you no letters. If you send word to the dower house of your address, I will have your belongings forwarded, otherwise, they will be burned.” She rapped the umbrella twice on the floor for emphasis, then marched away.
“A complication,” Lucien drawled from beside Sophia, but the twinkle in his eyes prompted her smile. He looked like his former self, and his hand was warm upon her skin. Sophia dared to hope that she might be saving him.
“You are wicked.”
“Au contraire. You are the one who engineered this seduction, Miss Findlay. I profess myself shocked by your disregard for social convention.” He stretched, yawned, and drew her back into his arms. He traced a lazy circle around her nipple with a fingertip and kissed her neck. Sophia thought she felt him purr. She felt like purring herself. “Even if I was powerless to resist your charms.”
The harpsichord began to play abruptly, a little trill that might have been celebratory if not for the change that came over Lucien. He got to his feet in one fluid movement and that glitter reclaimed his eyes. The room chilled. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the instrument, and he paled so that Sophia wondered what his loa looked like.
“Go,” he said, his tone so dismissive that he might have slapped her. “We have done what you wished to see done.”
“What I wished to see done?” Sophia echoed. She got to her feet and pointed at the settee. “I was not alone last night, Lucien de Roye, and you were not seduced against your will.”
He stood back, so wary that her hope faded. “Yet you are ruined, just the same, and I have a wager to keep. Farewell.” He paused at the threshold and glanced back, as if he couldn’t keep himself from doing so.
As if he didn’t trust himself to leave. “Be happy, Sophia.” His words were softer, heartfelt.
“Not without you.”
“You must be.”
Sophia watched him go, her frustration rising. The harpsichord played with wild abandon, as if the player were triumphant. Surely she hadn’t risked everything to gain nothing in return?
Why hadn’t her love saved Lucien?
She marched back across the room and swept a hand across the keys of the instrument, as if to push away those ghostly fingers. It fell silent. “I won’t let you have him,” she declared to the room, which appeared to be empty.
“You don’t have a choice, ma chère,” a man said, his shadowy figure visible on the far side of the harpsichord. He spoke in French, in a patois that Sophia hadn’t heard for a long time. “The wager must be paid.”
“In blood?”
“As the best ones always are.” There was another trill of notes, and Sophia stepped back, shivering as a new chill swept through the room.
“There has to be a way,” she murmured, almost to herself.
“Absolument, ma chère. You and I could come to an agreement, to be sure,” a man whispered in her ear. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him with sudden clarity, an older Negro man attired as if for a ball, a red rose in his buttonhole. There was laughter in his eyes and hunger in his smile. He blew her a kiss, then disappeared into nothing at all.
Sophia shuddered, revulsion feeding her determination.
She had to save Lucien. Somehow.
Lucien could have remained in his bedchamber on his last day of life, but he wasn’t one to hide from conf
rontation. He could have gone to the tavern and met with Lyndenhurst, but that pleasure could wait. He could have gone for a ride, or joined the other men to hunt, but his thoughts were locked upon the sweet passion he had shared with Sophia.
She was ruined and without a position. He knew she would be wealthy, but she didn’t, not as yet.
And he knew she was fond of her charges.
He had an unassailable urge to defend her.
The two girls were in the library, enduring a lecture from their grandmother. “And so, in the face of considerable impropriety, Miss Findlay has left our service.”
“What kind of impropriety?” demanded the younger and certainly more clever of the pair.
“I don’t care,” the older declared. “I hate German lessons.”
“Your German lessons will continue, with or without Miss Findlay’s instruction,” Lady North Barrows said firmly, rapping her umbrella once on the floor for emphasis. “However, that will have to wait until I find a new tutor for you.”
“Then we can abandon our lessons today,” the older one said with evident delight. “The others are going to the village, and...”
“And we shall review proper etiquette for dining,” Lady North Barrows interrupted. “I would wish for you to take at least one meal with the other guests on this visit, but your conduct at luncheon yesterday was utterly unacceptable.”
“Spoons and forks,” the younger one complained. “I much prefer German.”
“Perhaps an instructor could be found,” Lucien said, revealing his presence by stepping into the doorway. The older girl’s features lit with pleasure, Lady North Barrows looked grim and the younger girl smiled at him in welcome. He nodded to her. “Fräulein Findlay ist ein Betrüger,” he said in a whisper, confessing that their governess had been in disguise.
“I knew it!” that girl said. “And she’s an heiress in hiding.”
“Sie ist in der Tat eine Erbin in der Verkleidung,” he confirmed.
“What are you talking about?” the older girl cried, rising to her feet in exasperation. “What is he saying?”
Lady North Barrows tapped her umbrella, gesturing for her granddaughter to be silent. “What heiress?” Her eyes gleamed. “And how much of a fortune?”
“Sie ist die Tochter von Sir William Brisbane.”
“The daughter of Sir William Brisbane!” Lady North Barrows repeated. “Not that Brisbane, of Brisbane’s Emporium?”
“The very one,” Lucien confirmed.
“Well, then.” Lady North Barrows took only a moment to absorb these tidings. “How much?”
“Am Morgen geht es dreißig tausend Pfund, sowie einige Eigenschaften.”
“Thirty thousand pounds!” the younger girl exclaimed. “And property?”
When Lucien nodded, Lady North Barrows sat down heavily.
“Why will it change by morning?” the younger girl demanded.
“Because I have yet to win the rest of it. It was lost by her brother in a gaming hell, and I have recovered almost every shilling.”
“Why would you undertake such a thing?” Lady North Barrows demanded. It was clear she expected him to confess at least admiration for Sophia, but Lucien would not give Sophia any reason to mourn his loss.
Lucien held the older woman’s gaze steadily. “Because I promised her I would do so, no matter what the cost to myself.” He smiled. “And so, it shall be done.” He bowed to the trio, taking advantage of Lady North Barrows’ rare silence. “Au revoir, mes petites,” he said, then left them with much to consider.
He had only taken a few steps before the younger girl exclaimed. “I knew she was an heiress in disguise, and now she’ll be rescued by the prince who everyone thinks to be a scoundrel!”
“I never thought he was a scoundrel,” insisted the older girl.
The distinct rap of an umbrella silenced both girls, and Lady North Barrows’ declaration was the last thing Lucien heard. “Thirty thousand pounds. I think we shall have to ensure that Miss Brisbane is safely escorted to London.”
“London!” the older girl cried with abandon.
But Sophia, he knew, would not be in need of such an escort. Philip could take her wherever she desired in Lucien’s own carriage.
It would all be hers by morning.
For he would be dead.
Not, alas, a scoundrel revealed to be a prince intent upon marrying her.
He returned to his chamber and ensured that his belongings were packed. He took the stuffed charm that he had carried for seven years and put it into his pocket, for it was bound to his destiny as well.
The last person Sophia ever wanted to see again was Eugene Tremblay, the Marquess of Lyndenhurst. The sight of him, dismounting from a carriage outside the tavern in Bocka Morrow, sent fear surging through her and brought her steps to an abrupt halt.
She stepped into the shadow of a tree to verify that it was him. Oh yes. It couldn’t be anyone else. Lyndenhurst was still tall and lean, his nose was still hooked like a beak. He looked like the predator she knew he was.
I will have it all, Miss Brisbane, without regards to your ambitions. You will soon realize that it would have been much more comfortable for you to have become my wife.
Sophia caught her breath, pushing the memory of that exchange from her mind.
Truth be told, she shouldn’t have been surprised by the sight of Lyndenhurst. Lucien meant to gamble for St. Maurice, and she knew that Lyndenhurst had taken every crumb of her father’s estate from Charles.
Charles. Dear impetuous Charles. It was too easy to recall her brother’s despair at the loss of his inheritance and his subsequent flight north with his beloved Elizabeth. Her parents had never been enamored of the match, but once Charles had lost his fortune, they had forbidden it. Charles and Elizabeth had taken matters into their own hands and fled for Gretna Green, but they had never reached their destination. Dead in a carriage accident, both of them lost.
Sophia swallowed, reminding herself that they were together forever.
The loss of their lives was even more horrific if Lucien was right and Lyndenhurst had cheated to seduce Charles into risking everything he owned.
Sophia took a steadying breath and looked again. The carriage had no insignia, though she doubted Lyndenhurst had given up either of his teams. She supposed he hadn’t wanted anyone to know his destination. He shook out his coat, sparing a disapproving glance to the village as he donned his hat. He paid the driver and made a sharp comment, then strode toward the Mermaid’s Kiss before the driver had urged the horses onward again.
What had Lucien offered to tempt Lyndenhurst to wager St. Maurice?
Sophia clenched her fists and watched Lyndenhurst enter the tavern. It was wrong beyond all belief that this man should survive and Lucien should die. Philip wouldn’t contrive her entry into the game room, so Sophia had to find a solution. She burrowed in her satchel and retrieved Miss Findlay’s spectacles, which she had declined to wear this day. Fortunately, her warmest bonnet had a wide brim, so her face would be disguised. She doubted that Lyndenhurst would grant her a second glance even if she ran right into him. He had admired her fortune, not her person, after all.
She had to enter the tavern, though, because she had to find the keeper.
Then she had to convince him to accept a barter with her. Sophia knew exactly what she wanted.
It was better that Lucien didn’t see Sophia again.
He told himself that repeatedly throughout the day, although he didn’t believe it for a moment. He wished he could have said one last farewell, even though he knew he would have been tempted to never leave her again. The baron was close behind him all day long, his cold presence a reminder that the grave awaited Lucien this very night.
The skies were clear when he rode to Bocka Morrow in the evening, and the moon was full. He met Lyndenhurst for dinner at the tavern, as arranged, and had the meal served in the private room upstairs that would be the site of the game. Lyndenhurst complained
about the rustic nature of the accommodation and the trials of his journey, but Lucien knew the other man would have followed him to Hell and back for the prize of immortality.
His eyes were shining in anticipation of his win.
Lucien also guessed that Lyndenhurst would try to cheat.
The meal was indifferent, but neither of them cared about the fare. The serving maid was old and slow, but that didn’t matter either. She might have listened to their conversation, but they spoke of the weather and little else. The wine was musty, but neither of them would drink much until the game was over. Lucien had brought rum for the baron and offered some to Lyndenhurst who declined.
A clock somewhere in the tavern struck eleven.
Lucien nodded to Philip, who stepped out of the shadows to deal.
Lyndenhurst leaned forward. “I brought cards,” he said, offering a sealed deck.
“We will use mine or none at all,” Lucien said, and Lyndenhurst’s lips tightened. “You are welcome to examine them before we play.”
Philip laid out the cards on the table for examination before the game. They were new and unblemished, every one accounted for and no extras in the deck. Lyndenhurst checked them with care. He wanted the secret, though, and wanted it badly enough to abandon the protest. He nodded once and sat back.
The cold filled Lucien’s mind, the sense of pending death growing ever stronger. He tugged on his gloves, wondering whether his fingers would be too cold to hold the cards. The room seemed to fill with a fog, and he focused his attention on the cards.
This game would be his last living feat.
The letter was written to his solicitor and Philip had instructions to take the deed and ride to London. All would be set to rights.
Lucien thought he felt a draft, as if a door opened. He heard the music of a familiar tune played upon a harpsichord, although that was impossible. Neither of his companions seemed to hear it and he knew that the baron arrived for his due.
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